winecup Archives | Diana's Designs Austin

Spring in full swing at Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

It was a beautiful morning. Drizzling, foggy, chilly and damp. But, I was at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center spring plant sale with my friend, Laura, of Wills Family Acres, with a smile on my face and money in my pocket!

Modified for Covid protections, reservations were required and the sale has been stretched out over multiple weekends. While there were less plants in a smaller space, that wasn’t surprising given the winter we just had and the spreading out of the event time.

As is often the case in the spring, we were greeted by one of the baby owlets that are hatched each year. For the last 10+ years, the entrance to the center has been home to a pair of great horned owls. The mom’s name is Athena, and she and her little ones can be seen high above the entrance arch for 6 to 7 weeks in spring. Can you see the little one peeking over the ledge just under plant on the right side? Learn more about our iconic feathered friends here

They still had lots of great natives in 4-inch pots and gallons. Sun plants, shade plants, trees, agaves and grasses and yuccas. As always, I was fascinated to learn about natives new to me, and a few of them ended up in my cart. (Surprise, surprise!)

I’m trying Geum canadense, a woodland herb that grows as a ground cover in a woodland setting, it has strawberry-like evergreen foliage and a sweet little white bloom April – June. Also new to my garden, I bought a Solidago – I admire them every fall and have said for years that I’d like to have one. Well, now I do!

I also picked up several of my annual sale favorites – Helianthus maximus, calylophus, Henry Duelberg salvia, and Datura. Having a new garden helps me rationalize my purchases these days.

After our retail therapy, we treated ourselves to a leisurely walk around the grounds. The spring wildflowers and other bloomers blanket the beds, filling them with a patchwork of colors and textures like a beautiful quilt.

Engleman’s sage clusters brightened the beds all through the grounds.

Winecup makes a beautiful border.

Several windows create a secret garden effect, allowing visitors to peek from one part of the garden into another.

I’ll try to keep up my blogging momentum and post the rest of my pics this week, so pop back over!

By Diana C. Kirby|2021-04-19T11:09:05-05:00April 19th, 2021|Engelman's daisy, geum, hardscape, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, Sharing Nature's Garden, spring, spring bloomers, spring planting, winecup|5 Comments

What’s down there inside of all these bluebonnets?

Who knew that dogs were so interested in bluebonnets? She’s my sniffer girl – part long-legged hound, part catahoula and part husky.

Truth be told, she’s not really that interested in the bluebonnets – but she does like having a nice winecup snack.

Last year, she uprooted all of my winecup plants in this flagstone and decomposed granite path. Apparently this beautiful trailing wildflower’s tuberous roots are quite tasty!

Side note: Dakota has also been known to dig up and eat other bulbs, like agapanthus. I dug it out of the front garden because the deer were eating it. Little did I know that the deer sent a memo to Dakota, alerting her of it’s tasty bulbs. So, now I have no safe zone … and no agapanthus.

Oops, is that a bug in there? She’ll eat them, too!

Awwww, Momma, I’m really a good girl…

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:27:02-06:00April 12th, 2015|Blog, bluebonnet, Dakota, path, roots, Sharing Nature's Garden, tubers, winecup|0 Comments

Brilliant bluebonnets brighten the spring countryside in Central Texas…

It’s a banner year for Texas wildflowers. Just the right amount of fall and spring rain has bluebonnets, Indian paintbrush, Indian Blanket and a slew of other wildflowers cover Central Texas.

This burst of blooms even made the national news; I was delighted to see it on Monday night’s NBC Nightly News. We’re so proud of our wildflower displays that have their roots in the beautification efforts started by Lady Bird Johnson while her husband was president.

Lady Bird wanted to clean up Washington D.C. and the country’s highways by regulating billboards, junkyards and other unsightly displays that she felt marred the natural beauty of our nation’s countryside.

President Johnson announced the America the Beautiful initiative during his State of the Union speech in January 1965, saying:

“I want to make sure that the America we see from these major highways is a beautiful America.”

Thus followed Highway Beautification act that called for control of outdoor advertising and other items along Interstate or primary highways and encouraged scenic enhancement of our nation’s roadsides.

On her 70th birthday in 1982, Mrs. Johnson founded the National Wildflower Research Center, a non-profit environmental organization dedicated to the preservation and re-establishment of native plants in natural and planned landscapes. She donated 60 acres of land to establish the Center. In December, 1997, the Center was renamed the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in honor of Mrs. Johnson’s 85th birthday. Mrs. Johnson was chairman of the Wildflower Center’s board of directors until her death in 2007.

I remember well her passing, as the people of Texas lined up for miles along her funeral procession route, the hearse coming through Oak Hill on its way to her final resting place beside her husband at the family cemetery at the LBJ ranch.

She accomplished so much in her lifetime, and she left us an amazing legacy by raising awareness of the importance of preserving natural and native beauty in our nation.

Bluebonnets against the backdrop of the Hill Country.

The bluebonnet show is just as dramatic in contrast to Indian Paintbrush.

In my own garden, bluebonnets blanket my stone and granite path and my daughter’s play scape pea gravel, taking their place with another of my spring favorites, winecup.

Up close or as distant blur of constant blue along the hills of Texas, bluebonnets herald the arrival of spring like no other.

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:27:02-06:00April 11th, 2015|Blog, bluebonnet, Indian paintbrush, path, Sharing Nature's Garden, spring bloomers, Wildflower Center, Wildflowers, wildlflower, winecup|0 Comments

May showers also bring May flowers…

I know why Carol of May Dreams Gardens dreams of May. We’ve had just that kind of May this year. Full of sunshine AND rain – giving all our parched gardens a good long drink before the relentless summer takes its toll. Garden bloggers around the globe join Carol on the 15th of each month to share what’s blooming in their gardens. Come take a stroll with me and see what catches my eye in the garden today.

This beautiful ditch lily, a passalong from Lori, of Gardener of Good and Evil, who literally dug it up from a ditch in Wisconsin and brought it back to me in a bucket in the back seat of her car. That’s true gardening friendship!

Some short little zinnias that are filling in small spaces in my cottage-style front path bed.

Wine cups in full force in my rock path-thats-no-longer-a-path because of the wine cup!

I’m not wild about the pineapple guava tree itself – rather boring foliage. But these little blooms are to die for.

I’m always in awe of lamb’s ears blooms – they are so low and so understated and then their blooms shoot straight into the sky and make the boldest of statements.

One of my absolute favorite salvias, indigo spires, reaches out it’s long, lanky plumes.

If you think I’m in love with the pineapple guava blooms – this one knocks my socks off. It’s a Mexican Bird of Paradise, and loves our heat and drought here. Tough and wispy at the same time, one of my favorite combos.

And I couldn’t leave out the esperanza, or yellow bells, that grow all over Central Texas. They, too, are native to Mexico.

Daylilies I just can’t get rid of! I’ve dug them up twice and they keep coming back, so now they get to stay. They don’t fit in and clash in the bed they’re in, but they bloom for such a short time that I just pretend it’s part of the plan!

And finally, these gray santolina make the most beautiful button blooms – tiny little golden globes.

What’s blooming in your garden today?

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:27:17-06:00May 15th, 2012|Blog, daylily, ditch lily, esperanza, GBBD, GBBD 2012, indigo spires, Lamb's Ears, Mexican Bird of Paradise, pineapple guava, Santolina, Sharing Nature's Garden, winecup, zinnia|0 Comments

Purple plumes peeking out in the spring garden

As the temperatures creep up to early summertime highs here in Central Texas , irises, salvias and other purple plumes are putting on a pageant in my garden.

Maybe I like the purple and blue hues so much in my garden because they seem to cool off our scorching heat.

At least they give the impression that it’s cooler in the garden.

And because blue hues on the color wheel make things seem to recede, they also make my garden seem bigger.

One of my very favorites is Indigo Spires. It’s tall, deep purple blooms sway in the breeze and make a real statement.

Luckily for me, the salvias I’m collecting are safe from our hungry, grazing deer.

This catmint was a new addition to my garden last spring and it’s been a great performer. It easily survived last summer and stayed evergreen all winter. No cats here in my garden, but I’d recommend this a a hardy Central Texas perennial.

Mealy blue sage — which grows wild in the fields in Texas — seems very happy in my front garden and is spreading every year.
My pass-along irises, Amethyst Flame, from Pam of Digging, are still blooming and going strong after weeks.

Little pink and purple pretties are mixed into this whimsical windowbox arrangement.

My larkspur — from seeds passed along several years ago from Zanthan Gardens — are just beginning to bloom. I love that feathery foliage.

These tradescantia, or spiderwort, are finally spreading a little in the back bed. I hear they can be invasive, but there’s plenty of room for them, so I keep enouraging them to grow more!
The rock path in the back has 4 or 5 different purple blooms intermingling among the Oklahoma flagstone, decomposed granite and river rock. Homestead verbena, 2 kinds of winecup and more all make great neighbors.

This is the easement beside our neighbor’s property – filled with wild native prairie verbena. It’s not in my garden, but I can see it from my garden … kinda like you can see Russia…oh, nevermind!

While I lost some of the salvia ‘May night,’ the ones that survived last summer are going strong and attracting lots of bees.

By Diana C. Kirby|2016-04-14T02:39:37-05:00April 5th, 2012|amethyst flame iris, Blog, homestead verbena, indigo spires, iris, larkspur, mealy blue sage, Prairie Verbena, purple salvia, Sharing Nature's Garden, spiderwort, window box, winecup|0 Comments

Pretty purples are my passion…

My garden is awakening.

Warm days have coaxed many plants into beautiful blooms.

Among the best performers in the garden right now are the purple plants.

Can you tell I have a passion for purple?

Many of my favorites are salvias.

Did you know that there are more than 900 species of salvias in the world? How amazing.

I’m lucky to have a nice collection of them in my garden. Indigo spires, Mystic Spires, Mesa, May Night and several more, but I’d have to go digging through previous posts because they are unusual and I don’t have them committed to memory